Get the word out: Four tips for effective email communication during a crisis.

By Colby Cavanaugh

Many of our franchise customers have found themselves faced with the task of using mass email to communicate vital information during a crisis situation.

Though email marketing is typically considered a means of pushing out promotions or content to a list of subscribers, it’s also one of the most effective ways to quickly reach a large group of people with an important message. Perhaps you need to let customers know that certain stores will be closed until further notice, or maybe you need to share specific evacuation details with employees at some of your franchise locations. Regardless of the need, here are four best practices you should follow to ensure effective email communications during an emergency.

Your employees are your business. They greet and serve your customers, they open and close the shop, they handle the money, and they work alongside you in the kitchen. Each night, they leave, and each morning, you hope they come back.

It’s time to start thinking about technology for franchising success. Millennials already are.

By Garrick Brown

Gen X needs to look out because the younger generation is quickly outpacing them in the business ownership arena. Seventy-two percent of millennials would like to be their own bosses, with a hearty 24 percent already running or making plans to run their own businesses, according to findings by North Star Research for Small Business Majority and Young Invincibles.

These dynamics show a clear opening for a new generation of franchise owners.

on a franchise’s profitability, ability to invest or even its viability.

By Cramer Soebbing

Minimum wage has been a hotly debated topic for franchisees over the last few years. More poignantly, the discussion concerns the effect that impending minimum wage changes will have on franchisees’ cash flow, their employees and their capital expenditures. Depending on where they are located, franchisees could be paying their employees anywhere from $7.25 to $13 an hour at the minimum wage.